Tolerant coating can be painted on the surface of steel with a certain corrosion, and it is suitable for the anti-corrosion of steel surface whose surface treatment quality is not easy to meet the requirements, especially for the repair coating of large steel structure such as ships, bridges, harbor terminals and marine engineering. The principle, property, application and existing problems of transformative, stable, penetrative and functional tolerant coating were systematically produced in this paper. The application and research status of base material, pigment, transforming agent and penetrant of tolerant coating as well as the test method of tolerant coating were summarized. For marine tolerant coating, the adhesive force, foam resistance, soak resistance and other indexes of paint film should be emphatically investigated. The conversion behavior of rust in the coating should be studied and anti-cathodic stripping performance of paint film should also be emphatically investigated for marine tolerant coating. Deep mechanistic study on tolerant coating, exploration of high-performance resin, pigment and rust transforming agent, research and development of economic, environmental protection and high performance tolerant coating, especially the tolerant coating with high anti-corrosion properties, are an important direction for the research and development of coating industry in China.